Celebrating Earth Day with the LCC Climate Advocates
With Earth Day soon approaching on April 22nd, we at the Hub thought this would be an excellent opportunity to shed light on the environmental awareness initiatives within LCC – namely the ‘Climate Advocates’.
The Climate Advocates are a new initiative created by the college at the start of the 2021/22 academic year to promote environmental awareness and sustainability in curricula and teaching practices, as part of UAL’s climate action work. The advocates are made up of current students, as well as recent alumni, and are employed to work alongside the LCC course leaders to develop curriculum for each course that address issues of climate, social, racial and ecological justice.
There are nine advocates in total – one per LCC programme and they are led by Learning and Teaching Development Project Manager, Adrienne Tulley. To find out more about the climate advocates work, we spoke to Alejandro Martinez, an alumnus of MA Animation and current climate advocate for LCC Screen Moving Image and Digital Arts.
‘It was an opportunity to do things beyond taking part in public protests – it was the ability to organise people and facilitate in the invention of a social movement to get students more involved’ says Alejandro, when asked what drew him to this specific role.
Alejandro went on to mention that although the climate advocates’ focus is predominantly on LCC and particular environmental issues, there is also much collaboration between all the colleges at UAL, as well as with the UAL Change Makers. Together, they work to explore the areas in which racial and climate justice interact and examine how to address any issues within the curriculum.
These changes take time, but Alejandro says we will begin to see them implemented in the curriculum by the following school year.
When asked about goals going forward, Alejandro stressed he wanted staff and students to understand that learning about the climate issue is not optional – it is something that needs to be implemented and embraced in the curriculum.
When discussing how postgrad students can get involved in this environmental awareness campaign, Alejandro suggested to consider how we can “Use our art as a tool for social change”.
If you too feel passionate about using art as a tool for social change why not get involved in UAL’s Earth Day events on the 22nd of April?
Follow the link below to discover how you can get involved with the upcoming event, run by the Climate Emergency Network:
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